DO NOT JUMP ON THE RAFT!

I was planning an interstate move after living in Missouri for about six months, when a coworker mentioned Mark Twain’s Boyhood Home & Museum in Hannibal. Being a big Twain fan, I thought it would be a shame to flee the state without a visit. So, one Saturday morning, when I was on the brink of going nuts without something new to do, I decided to take a day trip to check it out.

Overplanning takes the fun out of a trip, so I barely looked at a map before leaving. I wasn’t really worried about getting lost or even ending up in the right place. But about an hour into the trip, my memory seemed a little fuzzy:

Am I supposed to take Highway 19 North or East?

Whatever.

I’ll figure it out.

Not the Right Turn

After roughly two hours of driving on what was supposed to be a three-hour trip, I passed signs for the Mark Twain Birthplace State Historic Site. Those sounded close enough to “Boyhood Home,” so I turned off the